Andreas Meyerhans

Group website

Research Outline

We aim to understand the factors that regulate the decision between an acute versus a persistent virus infection course, to define better control strategies of persistent infections and generate quantitative mathematical models of the underlying virus/host interactions.

 

Current Projects 

 

  • Towards a universal therapeutic vaccine against chronic virus infections ("la Caixa" Banking Foundation call Health Research 2017; HR17-00199): Analysis of a universal in situ vaccination approach to combat chronic viral infections.

 

  • Virus infection fate regulation: underlying mechanisms and therapeutic strategies of intervention (SAF2016-75505-R): Analysis of factors that determine virus infection fates.

 

  • Characterization and manipulation of control points of virus infection fates (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation grant no. PID2019-106323RB-I00 (AEI/MINEICO/FEDER, UE): Analysis of early and late events during acute versus chronic virus infection fates.

 

  • Estudio clínico de fase II de Durvalimab (MEDI4736) en pacientes VIH-1 positivos con tumores sólidos avanzados (DURVAST_GECP16/04 (ESR 15-10869)): Prospective study of checkpoint inhibitors in cancer patients with HIV.

 

  • Preclinical development of innovative mRNA/MVA vaccines against SARS-CoV2 (DGRIS, Generalitat de Catalunya): To design SARS-CoV2 immunogens for vaccine development.

Team during 2019-20

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PhD students: Valentina Casella, Eva Domenjo, Katarina Smutna, Paula Cebollada Rica

 

Postdocs: Jordi Argilaguet, Consol Farrera Sinfreu, Marta Sistere, Mireia Pedragosa, Mie Kobayashi

 

Selected publications 

  • Bocharov G, Casella V, Argilaguet J, Grebennikov D, Güerri-Fernandez R, Ludewig B, Meyerhans A (2020) Numbers Game and Immune Geography as Determinants of Coronavirus Pathogenicity. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 10:559209. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2020.559209. PMID: 33194799; PMCID: PMC7645103.  
  • García de Abajo FJ, Hernández RJ, Kaminer I, Meyerhans A, Rosell-Llompart J, Sanchez-Elsner T (2020) Back to Normal: An Old Physics Route to Reduce SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in Indoor Spaces. ACS Nano. 28;14(7):7704-7713. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.0c04596. Epub 2020 Jun 18. PMID: 32551537; PMCID: PMC7307329.  
  • Zheltkova V, Argilaguet J, Peligero C, Bocharov G, Meyerhans A (2019) Prediction of PD-L1 inhibition effects for HIV-infected individuals. PLoS Comput Biol. 15(11):e1007401. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007401. PMID: 31693657; PMCID: PMC6834253.
  • Argilaguet J, Pedragosa M, Esteve-Codina A, Riera G, Vidal E, Peligero-Cruz C, Casella V, Andreu D, Kaisho T, Bocharov G, Ludewig B, Heath S, Meyerhans A (2019) Systems analysis reveals complex biological processes during virus infection fate decisions. Genome Res. 29(6):907-919. doi: 10.1101/gr.241372.118. Epub 2019 May 28. PMID: 31138618; PMCID: PMC6581057.
  • Pedragosa M, Riera G, Casella V, Esteve-Codina A, Steuerman Y, Seth C, Bocharov G, Heath S, Gat-Viks I, Argilaguet J, Meyerhans A (2019) Linking Cell Dynamics With Gene Coexpression Networks to Characterize Key Events in Chronic Virus Infections. Front Immunol. 10:1002. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.01002. PMID: 31130969; PMCID: PMC6509617.

 

Other relevant information 

Topic editor on “Mathematical Modeling of the Immune System in Homeostasis, Infection and Disease” for Frontiers in Immunology.

As part of an international team of virologists, physicists and an architect we proposed easy measures for inactivating coronaviruses in indoor spaces, thus enabling companies to provide safer working conditions during the current virus pandemic. The joint manuscript in ACS Nano (reference 2 above) received great public attention.